


A Love That's There for Others, Too

by Randominity



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Break Up, Emotional Infidelity, Friends to Lovers, Infidelity, M/M, Sex Tapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:58:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1275706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randominity/pseuds/Randominity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Liam filmed Louis during a strictly one-time-only stoned hook-up, he never expected it to turn their lives upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Love That's There for Others, Too

“Hmmm, Liam, check your Twitter,” Louis tells Liam on a Tuesday morning in America, after pulling his phone from his back pocket and examining the screen. It vibrates while he’s holding it. “I’m getting DMs from you all of a sudden. Looks like someone’s been busy.”

Liam watches Louis pass in front of him with dismay, gaze sweeping the room for where he’s set his phone down on the craft services table, next to the pudding. “I’ve been hacked?” he asks in disbelief, as he rises to retrieve his phone. “But I just changed my password the other--”

“Sometimes that’s when you’re most vulnerable, I’ve heard,” Harry says, from the table. He picks up Liam’s phone and hands it to him. “Because then all their attempts to brute force your old password get reset. I’ll text Katie,” he tells Liam, as Liam unlocks his phone.

“I’ve already texted her,” Louis calls. “You’re unfollowing people, Liam, and you’ve got quite a mouth on you, apparently.”

Liam tries to get his confirmation e-mail sent and opens up Twitter in a browser just to watch his own timeline explode. He frowns, hearing the vibration of incoming messages and tweets sent to Harry’s and Louis’s phones, the flurry of profanity scrolling down the screen. “She says to get off Twitter,” Harry says suddenly. “All of us, get off it.” Liam looks up; Harry’s frowning down at his screen as well.

“But how come? Even you, Harry?”

“Hey, how come Katie’s telling me to get off Twitter?” Niall asks, rounding the corner and reading his phone.

“They’re tweeting pictures off your phone,” Louis says quietly. He opens his hand and chucks his phone into the corner of the sofa behind him. “Get off Twitter, like she said. Now.”

Liam looks down at his screen to see cropped images out of his gallery flood the page, and to his horror, something he never took pictures of; only filmed, and only once. There’s a screenshot of the side of Louis’ face taken from above, of his eye and cheekbone and one hollowed cheek, and Liam remembers with punch where that’s from, what makes up the rest of that image. Louis laughing, taken from the same vantage point, the back of his curled hand in frame. A close-up of two mouths kissing, visible only from the nose down, stubbled chins in view, as well as the birthmark on Liam’s neck.

“She said _now_!” Louis shouts, suddenly in Liam’s space, as he grabs Liam’s phone from his hands and flings it away, sends it skittering into the corner. Liam flinches at the motion, but otherwise he’s paralysed; there’s some action he’s meant to be springing into, he feels, but he hasn’t got any idea what it should be. Every one of those tweets would have tens of thousands of replies and retweets by now, spreading all over the internet.

“How did they even know to--” he looks up at Louis and pleads with his eyes, things he can’t say yet in front of the other boys. _I’m so sorry_ and _I forgot about it_ and _please don’t think this is my fault._

“Well, you did _keep_ it, obviously,” Louis sneers, eyes narrowed. “So cheers, thanks for that.”

“Holy shit,” Niall says, putting his own phone aside. “Are those-- did any of that-- are they real, or--”

“Whoever it is just posted a video,” Harry says. He looks up sadly from his phone. Louis sinks back down onto the sofa and puts his head in his hands.

Niall scoffs, shaking his head. “Of what, like, their demands?”

“No,” Liam says, still numb. “There was-- I had a video.” He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, suddenly weary although it’s morning and they haven’t even begun to do press yet. His phone buzzes from somewhere in a corner and he pushes off the table to find where it landed; he looks at it and laughs, helplessly, at the notification that his Twitter has been returned to his control and he can reset his password. “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” he yells at his phone. It was such a stupid video, so stupid of them to film it, and stupid of him to keep it. He’d honestly just forgotten. He had so much footage on his phone, so many things he’d wanted to post and never got around to, and then that one _fucking_ video.

“I’m waking up Zayn,” Louis mutters, dragging his hands down his face and digging his phone out of the corner of the sofa before getting to his feet to stalk around the corner where they’ve left Zayn to nap.

Niall slinks up close to Liam, his hands in his pockets. "Wow," he says. "When did that, er, happen, between you and Louis?"

Liam straightens up, glancing around for Louis, but he sees no sign of him. It's not really his place to say, he reckons, not without Louis to speak for himself. "Don't really think I should say," he says with a shrug. It was ages ago, anyway. Liam can barely remember anymore how Louis' cheek had felt beneath his fingers, how the bulge of his cock had felt inside Louis’ cheek. He can’t begin to remember how Louis' mouth had felt.

"I didn't know," Niall goes on, lowering his voice even more, "that you two had ever," he shrugs. "I didn't notice."

Liam laughs, and he hears the bitter sound of it as it fills the room. "There was nothing to notice, mate," he says. Nothing at all to notice, because they were done before anything could start. Liam thinks about what time it is in the UK. Mid afternoon, he reckons, and a fresh sliver of panic slices through him. His sisters are going to see this straight away, and his girlfriend. His phone has lit up with texts, but Liam only focuses on the ones from Sophia, saying simply _what is this_ , and then, when he hadn’t got back to her quickly, _WHAT IS THIS!!_

 _im so so soo sorry_ , he sends back to her. _im so soorry i promise i will explan to u later i looove you_ and then he goes looking for Louis and Zayn. They’ve got fifteen minutes before they have to meet with Lou for hair and makeup, and they’re meant to be eating and briefing themselves, but Liam can’t imagine keeping anything down now, completely gone off the thought of food.

Louis and Zayn are sitting where everyone left Zayn earlier, huddled together on the love seat with their heads bent over Louis’ phone. Louis is typing a message to someone, and Liam hesitates at the arm of the loveseat, wanting to wait until he’s finished and wanting to join in all at once. “Um,” he says softly, and they bend even more closely together before Zayn looks up and back to meet his gaze.

“Hey, bro,” Zayn says solemnly, his eyes wide. “This is huge, yeah?” He manages to imbue the statement with all the weight it deserves, and Liam feels it settle heavily across his shoulders, sagging against the love seat’s arm and then sitting down hard on the floor next to it. He’d meant to say something, but he doesn’t know what, now. Zayn’s been filled in, anyway. He doesn’t reach out to help Liam as he falls, so he supposes that’s settled too.

“Yeah,” he agrees at last, and then Louis stands, comes round the side of the love seat and reaches down to give Liam a hand up.

“Katie wants to have a bit of a Skype with us,” Louis says, and Liam scrolls up through his texts to see her latest come through. “So we can get told off before hair and makeup.”

“I reckon they’ll cancel everything today,” Zayn suggests, but Louis shrugs.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he says, averting his gaze, and there’s no heat to it. “Tomorrow’s just as bad as today. Let’s just find a room and get on with it.”

They settle for a 6-man conference room a bit down the hall and get Louis’ laptop situated so they can both sit in. Of all the things he hates about this so far, at least Liam’s grateful it happened during the day so their team could act on it. There’s a lot of browbeating about discretion and computer security and password integrity and they’re told they are not, under any circumstances, to try to address this issue on their own, on Twitter or in interviews or elsewhere. “We’ll make sure the word is out that this is not a subject to be discussed,” Katie tells them, “but press today is still on, because their questions have been set and approved already.”

“What _are_ we gonna say, then?” Liam wonders. “I mean, the official statement, or whatever. I mean, we can’t deny it, can we?”

Katie takes a deep breath. “There won’t be a denial,” she agrees. “If you want to look on the bright side, most of the footage is too graphic to air on the usual channels, but on the other hand, it’s very clearly the two of you involved. We’ll go with something generic about respecting your privacy without referring to the video itself or your relationships, but boys,” Katie takes off her glasses and it makes her look fifteen years younger, like someone straight out of uni rather than one of their mums. “We’ll do what we can with this, but is this--” she purses her lips. “Is there a risk of this happening again?”

“No,” Liam says at once, at the same time that Louis says, “never.” They exchange wary glances, then turn back to the laptop.

“I mean to say,” Liam goes on, “there isn’t-- I don’t have anything else, there isn’t anything else.”

“All right,” Katie says brusquely, slipping her glasses back on. “No other videos for us to squash, then. We’ll have a statement out in the next day. Stay the hell off of Twitter, please. I _mean_ it - don’t go looking yourselves up and getting upset.” She pauses. “You’ll want to handle your families yourselves, I assume.”

They both nod. “I’m just trying to get to them first,” Louis says, cracking a wry smile. His voice cracks as well.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Katie says, and Liam and Louis both have their phones out as soon as Louis has X’ed out of the session.

Liam hasn’t got anything new from Sophia since her first texts. “You have every right to hate me right now,” he says, head still bowed over his phone, but he risks a sideways glance at Louis, who’s engrossed in his own phone, thumb swiping over the screen. “But you have to believe me when I say I’m so incredibly sorry. I completely forgot we took that.”

“Forgot we took it?” Louis asks, looking up at last. “Or forgot we did it?”

Liam shakes his head a little, uncertain of the distinction. “A bit of both, I suppose? I forgot I had it anyway, it was just-- buried in so much footage and I just never thought--” he shrugs. “It didn’t seem, like… _dangerous_. It was just a bit of fun I never watched back, you know?”

“You can watch it back all you want now,” Louis says darkly, holding up his phone, on Twitter, with a steady stream of screenshots in sequence filling his timeline. Some of the images have been edited for modesty already, a mosaic filter placed over the places where Liam knows his cock is. His cock, a blurry shape in Louis’ hand. His cock, a blurry field in front of Louis’ mouth.

“Louis,” Liam says. He reaches out to pull Louis close in a hug, but Louis shies away and Liam flounders, unsure how to comfort Louis if he’s the problem. He settles for putting his hand on Louis’ shoulder and squeezing, feels Louis stiffen up under his fingers. “I’m really sorry. I fucked us over. I fucked this up.”

Louis shakes his head, biting his lip with furious enthusiasm. “It takes two to suck a dick, doesn’t it,” he says grimly. “I have to talk to Eleanor,” he adds, and slides out of his chair past Liam to exit the room quietly.

Liam remembers that Louis had laughed when they’d filmed the video. He’d taken Liam’s cock in hand when Liam had said, _“how much do you think you can take?”_

He’d laughed at the time, eyes crinkling, and said, _“like, in one go? How far down?”_ and he’d taken the challenge, folded his lips over his teeth and lowered his head over Liam’s cock until he gagged with a hiccup and pulled back, blinking fast and wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist. He’d laughed again - they both had - and he’d said, _”it’s not like eating a sandwich, bro, is it?”_ but that had been all right. Things were all right between them then, and were after Louis'd sucked Liam's cock, and after they’d kissed for Liam’s phone, awkwardly held at arm’s length.

Liam can’t even touch him properly now, can’t make him laugh at all. He looks at the door Louis has closed behind him for another moment, then returns to his phone long enough to text Ruth the extremely abbreviated gist of things. He leaves, eventually, in search of Lou or a toilet where he can catch his breath, whichever he can find first.

***

“And a little-known fact,” their interviewer - Shane? Sean? announces, “is this album was actually written -- a majority of the album was written by the band, by you guys yourselves, is that true?”

They all nod. “Yeah,” Niall says, gesturing to either side of him. “Especially these two have written a lot of it.”

It’s their particular routine this press tour, but today it feels sour, and Liam fights the cringe that rises to his face, hoping his tight smile looks genuine. So many people watching this live will have heard about the video, or seen footage or stills. They have to act as natural as breathing, today. It’s the only thing, Liam knows, that will get them through to tomorrow. “Yeah,” Louis says from the opposite side of their seating arrangement, before Liam can jump in. “We _have_ written a few of the songs on this album.”

“And I hear you’re writing for the next album already,” Shawn continues. “Is there going to be more of this collaboration in the future?”

Liam turns his head to look down the line at Louis, because he’d like to know as well. “We will have to see,” Louis says, his eyes wide.

Liam swallows down the bitter taste at the back of his throat. “Well, there you have it,” he says to Shane. “Next album - who knows? It’s up in the air.”

***

“That isn’t what I said,” Louis mutters to him as they stand backstage removing their mic packs.

“But isn’t it what you meant?” Liam asks.

Louis presses his lips together and shakes his head, chucking his mic pack down in the pile and jogging off to catch up with Zayn without saying another word.

***

Liam doesn’t know what Louis has told Eleanor, and he’s afraid to ask, when Sophia finally rings him in the UK evening, mid-afternoon by his schedule. They’re between press commitments, so Liam tucks his phone between his ear and shoulder and looks for a corner near the men’s toilets where the fewest people linger. He tells her that he’s sorry, so, so sorry, sorry that he did it and sorry that he never told her. He tells her that it happened before they were even together, after he and Dani had finished for the second time and he didn’t know what he was going to do with himself, or where he’d end up. He’d tried a lot of different things, he tells her, tried to be open to a lot of things. It had only happened the once, he tells her; not just the video, the whole thing. It isn’t ever going to happen again, he tells her.

“Do you ever want it to?” Sophia asks him.

“What do you mean?” Liam asks. “What’s that--”

“You’re close, Liam,” Sophia says, still sounding as tearful as she had when they’d started. “You do all these things together and I always sort of-- well, I thought, ‘they’re with us girls, there isn't anything there’ and now I find out there is. Louis was with Eleanor this whole time, wasn’t he? How could you do that to her? I thought you loved her!”

“I do,” Liam insists. “God, she’s lovely. It’s why we wouldn’t do it again; we didn’t want to hurt her like that!”

“But you did,” Sophia argues. “You weren’t with me, you said, but if _she_ didn’t stop you, why would being with _me_ have made you stop?”

Liam blinks, looking around for the possibility of eavesdroppers, sinking his chin further into his chest. “I wouldn’t have--” he starts. He can’t imagine doing it now that he can hear the tears in Sophia’s voice, but at the time everything had seemed so far away, down at the smoked-out end of a joint, at the bottom of a glass. “Sophia,” he pleads. “Babe, I love you so much. You have to believe me.”

“You know, I don’t know what’s worse,” she sniffles. “The thought that you only haven’t messed around with him since because you don’t want to hurt me, or the thought that you only haven’t done it because you haven’t wanted it badly enough yet.”

She doesn’t finish with him then, just rings off with a vague promise to talk to him later, and Liam curls into himself with a bit of relief, tucking his head down into his knees and just breathing for a moment until he feels a bit more like he’s under control. When he stands up, Paul’s hovering nearby with a cocked eyebrow and a head tilt that means _ready to join the others now?_ and Liam nods, smoothing out his shirt and walking back with him to the van. Harry and Niall are chatting with the crew outside and climb into the middle row of seats with him, leaving Zayn and Louis where they’re already sat in back.

Liam _wouldn’t_ like for it to happen again, he wants to be able to tell Sophia. It isn’t worth it, not a bit of fun worth upending their lives and relationships over. He and Louis have fun so many other ways, bantering and making up jokes and writing together, playing video games and shopping and so many nonsense things that don’t involve getting their kits off and hurting their girlfriends. They’ve spent six hours now ruining everyone’s day over what amounted to a five minute blowjob; of course Liam never wants to do it again. It’s why they’d agreed to it in the first place. Some part of them had to have known it would come to this.

Yet no one outside of the two of them, and maybe the band, cares that they were completely finished with each other now, and Liam realises they should have expected that. Liam hasn’t stayed off of Twitter with any more success than Louis has, and he knows what they’re saying. He knows how many people are only concerned with the fact that Louis Tomlinson got caught with a dick in his mouth, so that their “one in every boyband” trivia can stay current. Liam’s forgettable for the most part, except for the people who are convinced he and Louis have been carrying on a secret relationship behind everyone’s backs for months. The fans who have figured out when the video was taken - how they can tell from the cut of Louis’ hair and the shirts they’re wearing is frankly eerie to Liam - are adamant that Liam’s relationship with Sophia isn’t real. Liam hopes Sophia hasn’t had to see much of that, but he can hardly blame her if that’s part of the reason for her upset.

Being at the venue means they can keep busy, so Liam does press ups in the corner of their dressing room until his arms shake, then crunches until he’s collapsed in a sweaty puddle Harry has to step over to get to the kettlebells. “You don’t wanna wear yourself out too much,” Harry warns him, placing one socked foot gently over Liam’s crotch.

“Just having myself a bit of a lie down,” Liam says, then, “could you move your foot a bit to the right? I especially like it when you touch me there.”

“Cheeky,” Harry says, but it’s a bit closer to comfortable, and he releases Liam from his weight to do his own workout. Liam tries to make good on his word and nap where he lies, instead of trying to place the rest of the boys in his mind, in proximity to himself. Louis is off with Zayn skateboarding, Niall on his Segway, Harry right here working up a sweat. He might have sat in a plush chair playing games on his iPad with Louis, another day, or watching Louis play quiz games on his phone, or word association games from his Word-A-Day app, but this is fine. Louis isn’t comfortable here with him, and Liam can’t fix this, so he’s fine. They made it through press okay, and they’ll make it through the show okay. They’re professionals; it’s what makes them work above all, when all else fails.

***

The show is all right. Press the next day is cancelled.

***

“I think you should probably talk to him,” Zayn tells Liam the next night on the bus, sliding onto the cushion next to Liam on the sofa in front of the bunks.

Liam chuckles dryly, barely glancing up from his level of Candy Crush. “I already tried that, bro. I think that’s what he needs you for.” He hadn’t even known Zayn was still up. Louis is already asleep - or, in his bunk anyway, since Liam didn’t ask what Louis was planning when he headed back and Louis didn’t volunteer.

“No, I mean seriously.” Zayn nudges him with his shoulder, then slings his arm around Liam’s shoulders and pulls him in. Liam pauses his game and lets himself melt under Zayn’s arm like it’s the first bit of real affection he’s been shown in a day. Thinking back, it might well be. “It’s not all, like, confiding secrets with us, when we’re hanging out together. I think it’s, like, mostly habit?” Zayn shrugs, pulling a face. “Like he’s angry with you, so he comes to me.”

“I reckon he’s got a lot to get off his chest, then.” Liam rubs at a spot on his arm, watches the hairs roll up together into a line, then picks them apart again with his fingers.

“He’s not really talking about you, though,” Zayn says. “He might _think_ he’s angry with you, but he’s really angry about a lot of things.” He pauses, hesitant. “He’s getting a lot of shit on Twitter, you know.”

“Yeah.” Liam knows it. “We’re supposed to stay off.” At least he knew Jay had pulled Louis’ sisters off, because nobody could keep up with the inundation of people sending stills and video clips to them.

“Yeah,” Zayn laughs bitterly, shaking his head, “but who does?” His smile fades into thoughtfulness. “He’s a bit angry with me too, I reckon.”

Liam cranes his neck to look at Zayn fully, incredulous. “How does _that_ work? You haven’t done anything.”

“Yeah, but like,” Zayn shrugs again. “Me and Perrie worked our way past this, and now we’re stronger than ever. I think he might be scared it won’t go that way for him, and he might-- I dunno. Resent me, or summat, for being lucky.”

“How the hell am I supposed to help with that?” Liam wonders. “How’s he gonna come and talk to _me_ and feel better? I’m the _reason_ for this whole thing, to him.”

“Well, he’s _not_ gonna come to you,” Zayn squeezes his shoulder gently, “so there’s that. Just-- don’t just let him go off anywhere. Keep close so he knows you still, like, want to connect, even if he doesn’t feel like it yet. Mostly I let him vent a bit. It’s not always about you. It’s loads of things. He’s upset, yeah?”

Liam swallows down a sob that catches in his throat, his eyes burning with sudden tears. Zayn hasn’t given everything away, but Liam had known things were going to be difficult with Eleanor, and he doesn’t begrudge her any negative feelings she’d have from learning what had happened and when. Sophia hasn’t cut Liam out of her life entirely yet, but she’s distant, polite, when she replies to his texts. She still isn’t returning his calls and he doesn’t know whether that means he’s waiting for her to finish with him or if she already has and just hasn’t told him yet. He isn’t letting himself think about what it might mean to lose both Louis _and_ Sophia when the thought of losing Louis alone nearly suffocates him. “I just don’t know how much more I can apologise,” he says, choked.

“Listen,” Zayn tells him. “I’ve been hearing you take the blame for this over and over again and, like, just because Louis can point at you and say it was _your_ camera and _your_ video doesn’t mean it’s all on you, you know.”

“But he didn’t,” Liam says, and wipes at his wet eyes with the hand not pinned between his body and Zayn’s. “It’s just how I feel.”

“Liam,” Zayn shakes him a little. “Bro, listen. What is the worst possible outcome you can imagine coming out of this mess?”

“That Louis’ll stop counting me as one of his best mates,” Liam says. “That we’ll end up just being colleagues because we fucked up and couldn’t figure out how to be friends properly.” That Eleanor will finish with Louis, he thinks, and that Louis will never forgive him for it. That Sophia will finish with him and he’ll never be able to convince himself that whoever else he ends up with really _knows_ him. Somehow the rest of it seems easier to weather if he can just manage to hold on to the first part.

“The worst possible outcome for the _band_ ,” Zayn prods him, “or the worst possible outcome you can imagine _entirely_?”

It gives Liam pause, Zayn prompting him again, as though asking if that’s Liam’s _final_ answer; as though Liam’s answer changes anything, or everything. “I suppose they’re a bit caught up in each other,” he admits. “But I, er-- the second one.” He looks directly at Zayn as he says it; Zayn is so attentive, so alert, that it makes Liam feel more alive just to admit it. “It’s the worst thing I can imagine at all.”

Zayn’s nodding even as Liam says it. “I reckon I wasn’t quite prepared to hear you say that,” he says under his breath, and then he gives Liam a tiny smile.

“I reckon I wasn’t quite prepared to say it,” Liam agrees. “I don’t-- I don’t quite know what that means.”

“It means you have to talk to Louis, and that I was right,” Zayn says. He squeezes Liam again and then disentangles them and reaches across Liam’s lap to unpause his game. “Have a good night, bro.”

“You too,” Liam says, brow furrowed and still a bit stunned. He touches his lips with his fingers to feel if they’ve gone numb, but they haven’t. He’s in exactly the same condition he was in before Zayn came to sit with him, except that his eyes are a bit achey and damp from tearing up, and that there’s a tiny flicker of hope that didn’t exist in him until just now.

***

They make it through the following night’s show, and the next. There’s nothing particularly different about them from one night to the other; Liam and Louis banter when the script calls for it, and stand next to each other when the blocking necessitates it.

Fans started bringing signs with hand-drawn renderings of their kiss to the shows on the second day, signs with _Lilo Paynlinson is REAL_ , or _KISS HIM LOUIS_ or _KISS HIM LIAM_ all lit up, and Liam looks blindly past them, tries not to let his mouth press into a line. He drapes his arm across Louis’ shoulders as they sing and they don’t look at each other, split apart every time their cues end instead of lingering to play. Louis rushes off to dance with Niall and Liam engages with Harry and orbits Zayn, and it’s all right. If the press and the arseholes on Twitter are waiting for them to put a stage’s worth of distance between them, they’re going to be disappointed.

They have a hotel night Saturday, and Liam hesitates before deciding to leave the bus to Louis and Zayn. He knows Zayn said to keep close, but he’s just not feeling like that’s what Louis wants. He knows that sometimes Louis needs a push to get past whatever barriers he’s put up, but Liam’s never been very good at interpreting them. He doesn’t think he could handle being wrong about this one, overreaching his welcome.

It’s Louis who comes to him, after texting him _shizzle_. Liam sits up in bed, turning down the volume on the telly like Louis’ voice is coming from inside the room, and stares at his phone in disbelief.

 _drizzle,_ Liam texts Louis. Louis responds straight away.

_So you’re not busy then ?_

_nooo bro do u want too come over? I thought you where stayin on the bus?_

Louis doesn’t reply to that, just gives a whisper of a knock when he gets there, and Liam gets up, self-consciously throws an old t-shirt on, and his pyjama bottoms over his pants, and lets him in. “Hello,” he says, leading the way back into his room. “I didn’t know you weren’t staying on the bus tonight,” he repeats. “We could’ve been hanging out all this time, innit?”

“Maybe,” Louis says, his voice wavering. He’s still stood by the door, dressed in a vest and shorts, pressed up against it like he can back through if need be. “I am staying on the bus with Zayn,” he adds. “I just, um, I’m feeling kind of like… I need to keep moving.” He moves his hands in circles over each other to indicate travelling, and shrugs.

“Well, this room’s quite big,” Liam grins back at him, midway between the door and his bed because Louis isn’t following him in. “D’you want to do a quick workout or something, burn off that energy? We could go up to the roof and kick a ball around?” He can hear his words pick up speed, over-eager, and he forces himself to stop, stop pushing. It hasn’t even been a week, but it feels like ages since Louis has come to him for anything. He wants to make sure it lasts, and that Louis comes back.

Louis laughs, at least, but it’s wobbly at best and he looks past Liam, up and to the side when he does it. “No,” he says. “No, I’ve just, um.” He shrugs again and slouches and bites his lip, his eyebrows tilting up, and Liam takes an instinctive step forward. He knows where this leads.

“Louis,” he says quietly, taking another step, and another, slowly, slowly.

“Eleanor finished with me,” Louis says in a rush, and swipes at one eye with his fingertips. “Like, I knew it was coming.” He sticks his bottom lip out to pout, a parody of a hangdog expression, but chokes on a sob and the effect is ruined, and Liam is there, arms open, to pull him in.

“I’m so sorry,” Liam murmurs, closing his arms around Louis. His own eyes are wet and he doesn’t know how to hold Louis anymore. “I’m so, so sorry. I feel like it’s all my fault.”

Louis squirms in his grasp and pushes at Liam’s shoulders, forcing him back and off and away from Louis, putting him at arm’s length again. “It’s not about you!” Louis shouts hoarsely, face screwed up and red, both eyes shiny with unshed tears. “It’s me!” He points to himself. “ _I_ fucked us up! _Me!_ I _lied_ to her! I miss her--” he gasps-- “so much--” he turns from Liam and buries his face in the crook of his bare arm, grasping his wrist in his free hand to hold it there.

Liam isn’t very good at letting people blame themselves in front of him, not while he’s around bollocksing up the works well enough for everyone, but he can keep quiet for this. He steps in just enough to fit himself between Louis and the wall, so there’s something supporting him when he holds Louis and tugs his arm away so Louis can have a cry on his t-shirt. He holds Louis up when he sags, gripping him by the elbows because Louis won’t hold him back, or can’t, or both.

“I can’t do this without her,” Louis sobs into his t-shirt, and Liam tilts his head back and lets it hit the wall, tongue bitten around his useless apologies. God, it must feel to Louis like the whole world has been waiting for Eleanor to leave the picture. Liam doesn’t say anything, just rubs Louis’ back with one hand and strokes the fingers of the other soothingly through Louis’ damp hair, letting Louis cry it out.

He doesn’t cry for very long, sobs subsiding after a bit but still breathing heavily, and then he peels his face away from Liam’s chest, sniffling. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice low, “about your t-shirt.” His face is still red and agitated, but he seems to have mostly dried up around the eyes. The back of his hair is all messy from where Liam’s been stroking it, but he won’t see that for a while.

“That’s what it’s here for,” Liam swears. “Anytime, yeah? I mean, if you want.”

“Yeah,” Louis nods, wiping tears from the inside corners of his eyes. “Just leave me the t-shirt, then. I’ll carry it with me on the bus, shall I, for when I’m feeling weepy.”

“Sorry,” Liam fights down his smile, tries to remain droll as ever. “I’m afraid we’re sort of a package deal.” He rests his hands on Louis’ shoulders and rubs them. This has been the closest Louis has let him get in days, and every touch feels hard-won. “You all right to go back to the bus just yet? You don’t have to. I mean, you don’t have to stay here, but-- maybe Niall’s in, or--”

“No,” Louis sniffs again. “I can-- I’ll go back, give me a minute.” He takes a deep breath.

“Of course,” Liam says. “But you know, you can talk to me, too.”

Louis nods again. “I know. I might.” He plucks the sodden fabric of Liam’s t-shirt away from his pec and lets it fall back again. “I just wanna sleep, though, so.”

“All right,” Liam says, at a loss. He just can’t keep Louis here, no matter how hard he tries. It was never this hard before, not ever.

“Thanks,” Louis says at last, and launches himself forward into Liam’s arms for a hug; a normal, proper, mates hug with Louis’ chin hooked over Liam’s shoulder and his arms wrapped tight around Liam like he means it. When he pulls back there’s a moment when their gazes meet and, before, Louis would have made a quip or darted a quick kiss to the side of Liam’s mouth, saying, _“be good,”_ or _“love you,”_ but instead they smile at each other and let their arms drop the rest of the way. Liam opens the door for him and Louis slips out quietly, and it isn’t until he’s nearly under the covers again that Liam remembers he’s still got his bloody t-shirt on.

***

Liam finds out that Sophia's finished with him the next day.

Louis spends most of the day on the phone or Skyping with PR and Legal, roaming the halls in the conference floor they've booked for themselves like a one-man warband of destruction. It's an easy day - no show or press, just signing merchandise and approving the prints of a photo shoot they'd done several months before - and Liam tries not to make it seem too obvious he's following Louis around, stays in his periphery, pretends to be engrossed in his phone. There are parts of this he's familiar with from his split with Dani, but others are still hitting him like a tonne of bricks.

The Sun's running with the story full-spread, warning of a rush of angry parents demanding refunds on concert tickets now that One Direction's brand has been tainted with pornography. Now that they've had time to mobilise, one of the Christian groups in America have vowed to follow them for the rest of the tour, protesting their presence and bad influence.

 _Gay Scandal Sets 1D's Career in the Wrong Direction!_ crows The Mirror, with all the usual drama of the Sunday rags, and although he doesn't envy Louis having to sort out his breakup in the midst of all this, Liam is glad that at least he won't have to see this just yet. Maz sends him a link expressing his condolences, but with a cheeky footnote of _your star is rising mate, possible 2nd career here_ ; a gay website has ranked him an up-and-coming gay fantasy. "They've ranked my willy?!" he says in disbelief, sinking into an armchair next to Niall amidst a spread of laminate photos they're meant to sign.

"What'd they do?" Niall uncaps his marker with his mouth and looks over Liam's shoulder to the uncensored still of Liam's dick in Louis' hand, a makeshift ruler superimposed on the page estimating his size. "Whoa, Payno," he jerks back. "A warning for those things. Jesus."

"I _said_ willy," Liam says, scrolling past it quickly. The next image has the oval of Louis' face blacked out from the image. _Imagine your face here!_ , the text exclaims. "Jesus," Liam echoes Niall weakly.

"What'd they rank it as?" Harry asks, coming over to see, and Niall groans.

"Harry," he says in a hoarse voice, but budges over when Harry waves at him, sitting on the arm of the chair and curling himself around Liam.

"Nobody wants to hear this, Harry," Zayn warns, from his spot on the floor where he's taking pictures of his sketchpad with his phone.

"I mean, it was complimentary, I hope," Harry says, hissing his teeth at the blacked-out image of Louis. "Heyyyyy. That is cold," he says in a low voice, then, "where is it? Where's this ranking? I wanna know if I've been usurped."

"I don't remember us having this conversation when it was _your_ willy on show," Liam remarks, but scrolls back up to the ruler and hands his phone over, his face aflame. He was there; he's not really interested in scrutinising his own prick.

"Don't tell me what they say about it," Niall mutters, continuing blithely to sign, sliding prints over the arm of the chair and onto the carpet as he finishes one after another.

Harry whistles low. "They've got you at seven inches," he says, fingers scritching gently over Liam's hair.

"Jesus Christ," Niall says.

"Do they, now," Liam rubs his forehead and tries to shrink down into the crease between the back of the armchair and the cushion. They could have been crueller, he reckons.

"It's perfectly respectable," Harry says encouragingly.

"But she can keep the Twitter if she wants to, though, right?" Louis asks, rounding the corner with a marker lid in the corner of his mouth and open laptop balanced on his other arm. He sets the laptop down on the conference table in the middle of the room, then pulls a chair out and drags it behind him as he walks out the opposite door. "If she signs everything, she shouldn't have to delete it," he says, his voice trailing off and out of earshot.

They fall silent and track him with their eyes as he goes, and then Liam struggles up out of the gap he's wedged himself into. "Are you done with those ones, Nialler?" he asks, indicating the pile of prints Niall has fanned out from himself beside the armchair. He begins to scoop them up in his arms at Niall's nod to sign himself, and to take to Louis.

"I'm feeling like I should Tweet something," Harry says, retrieving his own phone. "Katie," he says in a mock-whine, as he texts. "Let me Tweet something. I can be quirky and distracting!"

"Ask her for me, if you do," Liam hears Zayn offer as he crosses the room. "I've got a whole queue set up here," Zayn says, and Liam's vision goes a bit watery with gratitude before he scans the hallway in both directions for where Louis might have gone. A crash to his left gives him some indication, and he hears Niall swear back in the room before heading towards the source of the sound. Louis is still talking quietly, sat cross-legged on the ground next to an overturned vacuum cleaner. He's got his spare phone in one hand even as he talks; Liam wonders what other pieces of technology he's abandoned to various conference rooms as he wanders and multitasks.

"Well, there's all these websites, Mum," Louis sighs, chucking his spare phone ahead of him and resting his forehead in his open palm. "It's not just Twitter, it's like--" he drops his voice further-- "gay sites, and stuff. Marcus says that Legal can sue, 'cause it's a private video, but then they have to track down every single one for violations, and they can't do that forever." Liam crouches down next to him and touches him gently on the shoulder so he won't startle him, but Louis looks up at him with a jump all the same. Liam sets the photos down between them and then sits, taking the marker Louis has abandoned on the ground and uncapping it. He can feel the grooves Louis' teeth have left all along the side of the lid.

"Yeah, I know," Louis says softly, shifting his leg so Liam can spread the photos out, "I'm fucking gutted. I _know_ , Mum." He wipes at his eyes. "Mum, I've got, like, another million calls. I love you too." He rings off and looks down at the pile of prints Liam's started to sign. "You've taken my marker for that," he says, after a moment of watching Liam work.

"Here, take your chewed on lid back," Liam says, flicking it with his fingers back towards Louis without looking up, but when he's finished signing the one he's on, he rises to his feet again.

"And get me some tea," Louis says, looking up at Liam and miming drinking, because he knows Liam's going to get a marker for him. Of course he is. He wonders if Louis knows gay websites have ranked Liam's willy.

On his way back to the conference room where the rest of the boys are assembled, Liam finds Sophia has sent him a single text, saying simply, _I'm with Eleanor._ For a moment a laugh bubbles to his lips - what kind of context is she referring to, he could ask; does she mean politically? Physically? How is he meant to respond to this? - but then he gets a bit teary even though it hasn't quite hit him yet.

 _i support u no materr what u feel like you have too do_ , he replies, _i love you_ , and then he sends her Marcus' mobile number so that Legal can go over everything with her as well.

"The Twitter embargo has been lifted," Harry announces with his hands over his head, when Liam returns for the marker.

"Well," Niall says. "For Harry and me and Zayn."

"Sounds fair and reasonable," Liam agrees, pouring Louis a fresh cuppa with the teabag in from the hot water dispenser before reaching down with his free hand to scoop a handful of markers from the pile next to Niall's feet. Niall hands him another stack of photos for them to sign, and Liam accepts them, making Niall tuck them under one armpit. "Thanks, lads, really," he says, looking up to meet their gazes before he heads back out.

"I Tweeted a picture of an open can of sardines," Harry calls, and Liam can barely hear Niall bark a laugh on his way around the corner.

 _I can't help but be reminded of a few sofas we've had to sit on for interviews_ , Harry's Tweet reads, and Liam shows it to Louis before settling back down next to him.

"God bless Harry Styles," Louis says solemnly, raising his tea cup in salute. "I love that lad. I've signed all these," he adds, nudging the pile toward Liam, and they swap.

"Are you done with everything else?" Liam asks him whilst he signs, and Louis nods.

"For now," he says darkly. "I think El was hoping she could sort of, like, quietly unfollow me without any sort of statement, but everyone would be running with the news as soon as it happened."

"Yeah," Liam says knowingly; so much of that time was a blur, but the incessant requests for statements were hard enough to deal with even when fielded by their team. "Sophia's finished with me as well," he adds. "So I suppose that's another thing we're in together."

"Sorry, man," Louis says, perfunctory and polite.

"Thanks, bro," replies Liam, just as short, and Louis drops his marker and sighs.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean for it to sound like--"

"No, I get it," Liam cuts him off. "You've got a bit more going on right now." It still doesn't seem quite as real, Sophia leaving him, in the midst of everything else. He's gutted, but it's on a distant level to what he felt when he lost Dani, two years of history and making a home together and that wasn't even due to any one thing that was his own fault. He can't blame Sophia for wanting out, but what had they built together? Not nearly as much.

"I just--" Louis throws up his hands helplessly, lets them fall on his thighs where his legs are still open and crossed. "Could do with a distraction more than anything. I just don't think I have it in me."

"So we'll be distracted," Liam declares. He smacks Louis on the knee and resumes signing. "We're on the road again tonight. We could Call of Duty it? GTA?"

"Mmmm." Louis considers it. "GTA," he says.

"Well, we _are_ in America,” Liam agrees. “It’s a deal. It's a... dizzle," he whispers, and bites his lip around a smile.

"Chisel," Louis says, very quietly.

***

"I know you guys have been through the wringer the past few days," Jamie says sympathetically when Liam finally gets around to answering his calls. "I hate to do this to you, man, but you don't think you can put even a _little_ bit of that energy into songwriting?"

It's something, anyway, getting back to the business of recording an album. Liam loses himself in the resumption of their routine, glad to set aside the seemingly endless reams of paperwork involved in ensuring their breakups are as tidy as possible. He lays down tracks of songs they’ve written - him and Louis, after months together learning their creative minds inside and out; bumper tracks with Harry and Zayn, and the five of them - stood in hotel rooms filled with mattresses just like last tour.

He lets Niall take a single picture of him behind the mic before he surrenders his time with Jamie for the day, and posts it to Twitter under the band account once Katie gives him the okay. _Noice to be back recording again hope you like the new tracks!!!_

"We’re trying not to read too much into it," Niall informs him, taking Liam's pair of headphones for himself to complete the handoff. "But the early attenders are down to a trickle, mate." Harry and Niall have been trying to make a game of it, people-watching, observing the fans arriving at the stadium in the afternoons. They have no idea if the radio hosts who offered to buy back tickets from angry fans have made good on their offers, because a sale's a sale, but rows of empty seats in a stadium would be a disastrous and contagious effect.

 _"I've heard it just sucks the energy right out of the stadium,"_ Niall had said when the story broke, and Liam had breathed out, unable to argue with that.

 _"I can only imagine,"_ he’d said at the time, frowning, but now he might not have to imagine it. Now Niall just shakes his head as he fits the headphones over his head, but this is affecting the entire band, and the others aren’t acting as if the blame isn’t laid equally. Liam doesn’t quite know how to deal with that, how to respond to it. Maybe he’ll join Harry at people-watching, then, he thinks, maybe try to get philosophical about it instead of depressed. He’s given up trying to offer apologies, which just make the boys try to change the subject.

He feels like PR sees him and Louis as liabilities now, whether they’re well-behaved on Twitter or not, but _“you said you wanted a more male audience, right?”_ Kevin from Marketing had said, pointing out the increase in gay male interest. Liam's been sent more images of his own prick from their own teams than he’s even seen on Twitter by now. _”How many of your songs on the upcoming album have gender neutral lyrics?”_ Kevin had asked. _”Is it too late to make it all of them?”_

If there _is_ a difference in the crowd’s energy, Liam can’t feel it in their shows yet. It’s the crowd that makes everything else drift away, more than keeping himself busy, more than a mere distraction. It’s the visceral feedback of the screams and the way they rise or hush when he opens his mouth to sing. It’s the bright grins Louis shoots him, careful, from across the stage, that make him want to close the unscripted gap between them just to see if the world will end.

Back on the bus, Liam’s paperwork awaits, scattered in the lounge alongside Louis’, and infringing on the home he and Louis and Zayn have worked to carve out there. "It's almost like getting divorced or something, innit?" Zayn says gently, hooking his chin over Liam's shoulder as he surveys the damage from behind him.

"I reckon it'd be worse if we were getting divorced," Liam replies, signing off between his crossed legs on what he thinks is another gag order. He's pretty sure it is, anyway. He won't talk about Sophia, she won't talk about him, Ruth and Andy will help Sophia get her things from his flat; it's all a bit surreal his second time through, the rote mechanics of printing out pages and signing and scanning to e-mail them back.

"No kids, though," Louis points out from his spot on the floor where he's sprawled on his stomach to read and sign, kicking his bare feet back into Liam's knees. "No property to split.” He rolls to his side. “Well, shit,” he says, mouth twisting. “Three years and all we have is photographs and a load of papers that say we’re not to talk about each other.”

Zayn comes over and squats down beside Louis, then lies down completely next to him. “I didn’t mean for you to compare it like that,” he says gently, fingers barely touching Louis’ arm. “I just meant it’s a big life change.” He says something else, too, but low enough that Liam knows it’s just for Louis, and he ducks his head back down to skim over the next paper he’s meant to sign.

“No,” Louis says out loud after a moment, starting to get up, stretching his back. “I want to write something; Jamie’s right. How about when we get to the hotel, Li?”

“How about what?” Liam asks him, having assumed he’d just be talking to Zayn for now.

“How about when we get to the hotel, Liam,” Louis says again. “Let’s write us a song.”

***

Liam doesn’t think it’s going to work at first. It’s the fact that they’ve been writing together for over a year and Liam has thought him and Louis to be so in tune with it that has him out of sorts now. There’s an energy to Louis, and an undercurrent of tension between them, that they haven’t yet talked out. It’s all coming out here, in bits and pieces, in every one of the angriest, most painful lyrics Liam has ever heard Louis compose, in every time Liam hums a melody that has Jamie and Julian nodding, but Louis narrowing his eyes.

“Guys?” John asks warily, gaze shifting between the two of them.

“I just don’t think we’re on the same page,” Liam says, shaking his head and scrubbing his hand frustratedly through his hair. He hates feeling like he’s wasting everyone’s time. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, to come here and put this energy to creative use.

“I agree,” Louis says, his mouth pressed in a line.

“There’s a lot of optimism in these hooks, Liam,” Jamie says.

“Well, that’s Liam for you,” Louis says, “always looking on the bright side,” and Liam can’t help but think that’s not entirely fair. Louis, of all people, should know that. He’s inscrutable to Liam in a way he hasn’t been for ages; Liam isn’t certain if he’s irritated with Liam for not being able to keep up with him, or merely goading him creatively. A month ago he’d have bet on the latter, but tonight he can’t be sure.

Jamie holds up his hands. “That isn’t what I’m saying,” he says. “Just that you don’t need to put on a brave face here. Is that really how you’re feeling right now, Liam? I’m not asking you to talk it out or anything, just--”

“--channel it,” Liam mutters the end of the thought, looking down. He rubs at his mouth with his fingers as he thinks. He’s been at the bottom of those darker thoughts before, and he knows them well enough to know he doesn’t want to dwell there. He’d had his very own sounding board in Louis then, and couldn’t have fathomed having this, this incredible outlet and team and a real _focus_ for expression to pull him through. He owes Louis that, Liam thinks. He owes him his honesty even if he can’t let it stretch past the borders of this room and the cushions and the propped up mattresses.

It’s half three in the morning when they finally end up with something Liam likes to think of is a foundation for a good love song, if they can call it that. They can still make it go either way; the heady rush of obsessive new love, or the unhealthy fixation on love long past, or one not meant to be. Louis’ voice cracks on the demo; they decide to keep it.

"Well,” Julian whistles low, as he pushes away from his computer. “You said you wanted edgier, guys.”

They break for the night with apologies all around for the late hour and it doesn’t hit Liam how tired he is until he stands, suddenly slow in his reflexes and his eyes aching with the effort to keep them open. The thought of making the journey back down to the ground floor and get resettled on the bus is too much to bear. He sidles up to Louis. “I say we get our things sent up and just kip here for the morning, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, blinking long and slow, slumped against Julian’s desk.

They say their goodbyes while they wait, and then Jamie stops Liam before he can follow Julian as he shows Louis out. “Listen, man,” he says quietly, fingers pressed to the inside of Liam’s elbow. “I know it's not any of my business, and maybe you should just forget I even said anything--”

“No, man, it’s all right,” Liam insists, adjusting his messenger bag and straightening his snapback. He pulls out his phone for a quick check of his texts, but keeps an ear open for what Jamie has to say.

“But you guys,” Jamie continues, ”you two work real well together, and it’s always a blast watching you come together like this. I hope whatever's going on around you doesn't get in the way of what you have with each other."

"Thanks, yeah, cheers," Liam says reflexively, nodding as he moves past Jamie to the door John’s holding open. Louis is waiting for him in the hall with Julian nowhere in sight, and it occurs to Liam, a moment late, that Jamie may have been making the implication they're a couple.

“Here’s your key,” Louis hands it to him, straightening from his position leaning on the wall, and puts his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks,” Liam says, checking over his shoulder to make sure Jamie’s gone back inside, then, “did Julian have anything to say to you just now?”

“He said we worked well together,” Louis says, as they make their way down the hall. “I did like what you came up with tonight. I didn’t say that, before.”

“Thanks,” Liam says again. “Did you-- he didn’t give you the impression, did he, that he thought we were--”

“That we were fucking?” Louis raises his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah.” They come to a stop. “This one’s mine,” he says, tilting his head.

It’s sort of a non-reaction, but then, Liam reasons, they’re both completely knackered. “I sort of thought I might have read him wrong,” he admits. “But we’re not-- I mean, Jamie _knows_ the girls.”

“I know,” Louis says, shrugging.

“But he still thinks we’re--”

“Yeah.” Louis shrugs again, and turns around to work his key card in the door.

“But we’re _not_ ,” Liam insists, to the only person he fears might actually know that now. “Nobody thinks we are. Nobody who knows us has ever even acted like they thought--”

“Oh, Liam,” Louis says, and his tone is fond and sympathetic, but Liam doesn’t miss the slight mocking in it either. “It’s like it’s your very first day.” He turns back to Liam in the space between Liam’s body and the door, and pats the side of his face with an open palm before letting himself inside his room and closing the door behind him.

***

Liam is about to turn twenty-one in America, and it’s far from the event he’d thought it would be when they first planned their tour, staying over in Chicago and with a week off before the shows in LA. Sophia’s and Eleanor’s absence has been well-noted by the paps, and Liam knows that going clubbing with drinking involved is just an invitation for him to fuck up with the press lying in wait. Zayn’s too close to his wedding to run interference or play wingman, and for what? Liam doesn’t know what he’d be looking for, anyway. He only wants a good time, an opportunity to forget himself, to pretend like having survived the year would make it the best day of his life.

“We’ll celebrate on the bus, then,” Louis says, as he leads the way down the aisle to the lounge after the show. He stops in the doorway and spreads his hands and feet apart to meet the door frame, filling the space so that Liam can’t get around him.

“How’s that gonna be different from any other night, then?” Liam asks, planting his hands on Louis’ shoulders as he looks over them into the lounge. “Are you gonna carry me, Tommo? I’m the guest of honour; that should be a bare minimum, I think.” He hoists himself up onto Louis’ back so Louis’ forced to let go of the door frame and catch Liam under the thighs with a grunt.

“Yeah, just for you,” Louis chokes out, staggering. He sways to the side beneath Liam’s weight, and if he slams Liam into the frame before taking his first step into the lounge, Liam isn’t going to say anything about it.

“Sorry if I’m a bit heavy,” Liam says, not sorry at all. “There’s been cake, as you know.” He’s still got some of the cream in his hair. “I’m full of dough and sweets.”

“Yeah, all right, get off me,” Louis croaks, sinking to his knees before an ottoman and bending over low.

“Don’t drop him, Louis,” Zayn scolds him, coming up from behind them as Liam crawls up and over Louis’ bowed back. “He’s the birthday boy. I’ve brought sparklers.” He holds three up, two in one hand and one in the other.

“ _Sick_ ,” Louis declares, rolling over onto his back. “Paul wouldn’t let me have them. They’re a fire hazard, did you know?”

“ _You’re_ a fire hazard,” Zayn says. “Anyway, it’s meant to be two for twenty, and then one.” He looks down at himself, at each occupied hand, then at his pockets. “Louis, can you--”

“Yeah, I’ve got me lighter,” Louis says, and hoists himself up to dig it out and then light them.

Zayn and Louis sing Liam Happy Birthday even though he’d already had it sung for him before the show with the crew, and Louis tries to stick two of the sparklers into the waist of Liam’s trousers before they nearly catch on the hem of his shirt sleeves. Zayn kisses him on the cheek after, saying, “have a good one, bro; I’m off. I promised I’d have a chat with the missus and say hi to the kids.” Liam has never met anyone as married as Zayn is for someone who hasn’t actually got married yet, and that includes his parents and his nan and grandad.

“We’ve got some Mike’s Hard Lemonade to start with,” Louis announces once Zayn’s gone, shaking a bottle vigorously as he talks, which is ridiculous because Mike’s Hard isn’t a fizzy drink, “and Jack and Coke, or just Jack if you want it. We’ll get you proper pissed.” He opens the bottle and sticks one of the extinguished sparklers in, then hands it to Liam. It still doesn’t fizz over.

Liam accepts the bottle dubiously. He doesn’t know where the sparkler stems have been. “I’m sorry you can’t go out either, Louis,” he says. 

Louis shrugs and opens a bottle of his own. “Yeah, well, you know what they say,” he says.

“No, what?” Liam asks, and takes a sip around the sparkler stem. It tastes weird. He’s probably being paranoid.

“That I’m a fucking pouf and I’m not fooling anyone,” Louis says flatly, raising his eyebrows above the mouthful of lemonade he swallows.

Liam had thought Louis was going to invoke a catchphrase or an old wives’ tale; he stills, horrified, staring at Louis, his mouth formed around a word he can’t remember wanting to say. Even when reacting to them - the rumours Liam knows have always followed Louis - Louis has always just taken it on himself, and in his dismissiveness made everything seem less extreme than it must always have been.

Liam closes his mouth, teeth coming together with a click. “Jesus,” he breathes. “Has that-- is that always what--”

“I mean, I don’t give a fuck,” Louis tells him, rolling his eyes, his grip tight on the bottle. “I know who I am, and they’ll talk whether I go out or stay in. But I’m not on the pull, either way, so I might as well just stay.”

“I’m glad,” Liam says, still holding his breath a bit. “That you’re not-- that you don’t mind staying in with me.” He’s glad Louis isn’t on the pull, too, because Liam isn’t ready to be. He isn’t sure when he will be, when it will seem worth it to go through everything all over again, when he’ll start to feel too lonely to be without the kind of love he can’t get even within the family of friends he’s got here.

“It’s your birthday,” Louis says, as though that explains it. He sits down on the sofa, sprawls wide with his bottle held out. “Birthday boy decides. FIFA or Call of Duty?”

Liam bites his lip. “GTA,” he decides.

Louis raises his eyebrows. “The birthday boy’s a bad man,” he crows. “Well, we _are_ in America," he points out, and Liam grins to himself, pleased that Louis has picked up his joke. "Did you know,” he adds, as they fetch their controllers and Liam puts in the game, “that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas?”

“Is it, now?” Liam settles back next to him with a glass of Jack and Coke.

“It is,” Louis confirms. “I read it in a quiz app. Random facts about America or something.”

Liam pauses. “I have to ask if that’s because we’re about to play GTA.”

“Well, that’s what made me think of it, yes,” Louis nods. “Also, since we can go to Vegas and drink as well gamble, now, I thought it was interesting that prostitution is legal there.”

“And you just had to pass on this random fact,” says Liam, staring at the side of Louis’ head. Louis shrugs and starts up the game. “Prostitution? Really?”

“I just thought it was a bit quirky,” Louis says.

Liam stares a bit longer, then thrusts his elbow out to the side to push Louis over. Louis nudges back with his own elbow without looking, hands tight on his controller. Liam leans into the shoulder check he aims into Louis’ side, making him lose his balance for a moment, and when he flails back upright, Louis half-stands to launch his own attack back into Liam. Liam lets go of his controller with one hand and reaches across himself to push Louis over. Louis slaps at the offending hand, then throws his controller down entirely and places his hands in the center of Liam’s chest to shove him down.

“Oi!” Liam cries, flailing and slapping back. They struggle for a moment, slapping at each other and trying to put their hands in one another’s faces, and Liam barely knocks aside an attempt by Louis to pinch a nipple before Louis has tweaked the other one.

With a growl, Liam takes them both down off the sofa, grabbing at Louis’ wrists when he struggles and sinking them to the carpeted floor. He twists them so Louis lands on the side of his arm instead of his shoulder taking the impact, although he's pretty sure Louis will bruise there tomorrow. Louis' shoulder blade is next, and then he's flat on his back beneath Liam, huffing out a breath but still struggling, his wrists in Liam's grip and fingers clawing out with no purchase. He looks down the length of their bodies to where Liam's pressed one knee gently to the inside of his own, pinning him there, and laughs, throwing his head back before he gives one last buck and then goes limp. "All right, all right," he wheezes. "I can't tap out, you arse, you've got my hands."

"I was just waiting for you to admit I had you," Liam points out, but releases him, and Louis pats himself primly on the chest before reaching up to grip Liam's biceps. Liam braces himself for the inevitable counterattack, but Louis merely holds on, breathing heavily and looking up at him.

"We should've done this before you got all trained up again," Louis quips, squeezing Liam in his hands. Liam shrugs one shoulder.

"It's not your fault you missed your window," he says. "We were both rather occupied."

"Yeah," Louis agrees. "Been a bit of a shit time, really."

Liam can feel the faintest twinge of a burn start in his muscles from holding himself up, and he thinks hard about working out, and making it count, instead of how he hasn't rolled off Louis yet and how Louis hasn't commented on that fact.

 _"You know,"_ Liam had said, that night, before they'd started anything. He'd said, _"sometimes I wonder what would happen if we were lying around like this and I just, you know,"_ he'd shrugged, watching his toes turn in together, then out again, rocking his feet on his heels. _"Leaned over and kissed you once. You know? Like, what would you do?"_

Louis had snorted a disbelieving laugh that turned into a cackle, and he'd reached over himself and stroked at Liam's arm. _"Do you think this often, Payne? Why would you think this?"_

Liam hadn't known. It wasn't, like, a thing he _thought_ about thinking. He just did, sometimes, a flash of an idea, one of a thousand _what ifs_ that he let flutter out to the universe at any given time. _"Well, I mean, it's not romantic or anything in my head,"_ he'd argued at the time. _"I just, I mean, you're fit--"_

Louis had laughed again, this time a rude noise through his lips. _"Thanks, bro,"_ he'd drawled sarcastically.

 _"--and we're mates and everything,"_ Liam had gone on. _"Sometimes I just wonder, that's all."_

 _"That's quite the leap to make, I must say,"_ Louis had said thoughtfully, as his giggles subsided. He'd scratched his stomach idly, fingernails scraping over the weave of his shirt, before he said, _"do you think that now? Are you thinking it now? Or is it other times?"_

Liam had nudged Louis' foot with his own. _"Reckon I'm thinking it now,"_ he'd said. _"Now we're talking about it."_

 _"What do you think I would do?"_ Louis had asked. _"When you think it?"_

 _"I never get that far, mate,"_ Liam had chuckled. It had been a silly thing to admit to, anyway. Let Louis know about a throwaway idea and he would build it up into something massive, drag it on for ages. _"I just keep remembering you have a girlfriend and I shut that line of thinking right down."_

Louis had turned over at that. _"Really?"_ he'd asked, drawing it out. _"Because I have a girlfriend? Do you think I'd do something differently if I wasn't with Eleanor?"_

 _"What's that supposed to mean?"_ Liam had asked. He'd felt warm, still, from the weed and from proximity, maybe the guardedness that came from being held under Louis' scrutiny. He'd shrunk back, feeling small and exposed, and he'd said, _"I don't know, bro, I just don't think it."_ What could Louis do that was different? Say, _"I can't kiss you, mate, I have a girlfriend,"_ instead of _"I can't kiss you, mate, I don't like you that way,"_ or _"I don't like boys,"_ or-- it hadn't mattered, anyway. He wasn't kissing Louis. He wasn't kissing anybody. He was just lonely, that was all it was.

 _"Well, just do it, if you're going to,"_ Louis had said, a hard challenge in his eyes, even though Liam hadn't offered anything. He'd looked alert, and wary, and a bit wild, like he'd bolt if Liam actually tried, but like he was holding himself together against everything.

 _"Just--"_ Liam had blinked and turned over and hovered a hand uncertainly above Louis' shoulder. _"Are you serious?"_

 _"Well, I'm not going to give away the answer, Liam; you'll have to find out,"_ Louis had said, and then Liam had kissed him.

He's not thinking anymore about what Louis would do if he kissed him; he's had that already, and he knows how Louis feels and how he tastes and the sounds he makes. He's remembering, though, what it felt like to _want_ it, the way he'd liked the feel of Louis' body beneath his, and how he'd missed it and how he'd not let himself think about it because-- because they weren't doing that. Because they'd agreed they couldn't, only the reason they weren't no longer existed. Would Louis do anything differently if he didn't have a girlfriend?

“What, Liam?” Louis says pointedly, his thumbs digging grooves in Liam’s skin as he makes his first attempt to move away. “ _Liam_. What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking about that time I kissed you,” Liam admits softly. “I know I’m not supposed to, all right,” he goes on, suddenly and irrationally angry. “We agreed, I _know_ that, but I _am_. It’s my _birthday_ ,” he laughs bitterly, as though that explains it, this bit of self-indulgence. “And we’re stuck in here, and we’re making the best of it, but there it is, innit?" 

Louis releases Liam then, and he rolls over, lands on his back with a thump. It's too much, they're too close, they've been playing at this too poorly, like there was never any tension between them. It hurts to contemplate. His throat is tight like he's holding back on a yell.

For a long time Louis doesn’t say anything, and Liam’s about at the end of his nerve, about to tell Louis to forget it because he’s got the message. He’s gone too far. "I thought it would be different," Louis says at last, slowly, and Liam turns his head to regard him. Louis chances a look in Liam's direction, then back away again. "Kissing you, I mean," Louis goes on. "Because I was with Eleanor. I thought it would be different, I don't know. Like, to compare you. I thought it would be easy."

"Like everything else with us," Liam smiles wanly, rubbing over the top of his head absently with his palm. It's been a long time since he's had it shorn so short it was just fuzz up there, but it soothes him all the same.

"Like--" Louis huffs a laugh. "Yeah. Like, if you gave me an excuse," he goes on, "I could just tick it off, like, that's done--"

"If I gave you an excuse?" Liam asks, incredulous.

"--like a dare, or something," Louis explains.

"But you liked it," Liam prods at him, reaching over himself to jab at Louis with a finger.

"I sucked your dick, Liam," Louis retorts. "I think it's pretty safe to say."

He had, which Liam never really lets himself mull over. He'd been the one to offer, when Liam had asked _"what do you want to do?"_ He'd got to his knees and hooked his fingers in Liam's waistband and said, _"can I do this?"_ and Liam had thought it was still half a joke, had laughed, had said _"I don't know, mate, can you?"_

He'd said, _"Louis, you look-- I wish you could see how amazing you look down there,"_ and Louis had shaken his head, laughing outright.

 _“Ugh, god,”_ he’d said, trying to duck away. _”Stop staring like that."_

 _“I can’t help it,”_ Liam had giggled, buoyed helplessly by Louis’ reaction. _“Not being funny, I’d like to remember you down there.”_

 _"If you take a picture, you can look at it all day,"_ Louis had joked, and Liam had frozen, his fingers curling over Louis’ shoulders.

 _“Are you serious, bro?”_ he’d said, before launching into motion, fumbling his phone out. _"What if I filmed it?"_ he’d asked, making a face at his own audacity, inviting Louis to shut this down for both of them straight away.

There had been a long pause before Louis had said, _"yeah, all right,"_ biting his lip as he shifted on his knees.

"You let me film it," Liam goes on, ramping up, and Louis shrugs, shakes his head. He bites his lip now, as well.

"It wasn't gonna happen again, was it," he mutters. "And you said you wanted to remember."

"No." Liam shakes his head and leans up on one elbow. "Listen, Louis," he says. "I've had some rubbish ideas in my life, but I've never had one you didn't at least call out as rubbish before you let me fall on my face with it."

“Well, I didn’t exactly expect a year later half the internet would be remembering it along with you, did I?” Louis snaps, and Liam recoils. He holds his hands up.

“You’re right, that’s right,” he says solemnly. "You had everything to lose, and I know we said we shouldn't, but we _did_. And you just _let_ me, and I didn’t-- I didn’t take proper care with that.” He shrugs, helpless to fix it. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

"The funniest part of that,” Louis laughs, but it’s a hollow sound, “of everything, is that I wanted that for me, too.” He resolutely stares up at the ceiling. "For you to remember me. I wanted--" he sighs. "Like, at the time, I didn't want you to think it was a mistake. Which is kind of funny now, innit?"

"Do you think it was a mistake now?" Liam doesn't think he's breathed since Louis started talking.

"No," Louis shakes his head. "Even if we shouldn’t have done it, I’d just keep wanting to do it, later and later. I hate that you kept the video,” his voice cracks. “I hate that it got out, but I don’t hate that we did that. I just want to do it all over again, only now there's no good reason not to."

Liam lets out the breath he'd been holding, as Louis takes one in sharply. His heart is hammering in his chest, and when he lifts his hand to press it over Louis' stomach, he can see it shaking. "I just wanna know if this is some kind of a rebound thing," he says, and he's surprised to hear his voice is shaking, too.

"Can it be a rebound if it’s something you've wanted since before you were finished with the other person?" Louis asks. He takes another deep breath, and then, at last, he turns over to face Liam. His fringe falls into his eyes; he flicks it aside, licking his lips, and then he launches himself forward, hand coming up to curl around the back of Liam's neck as their mouths meet, all corners.

Liam starts at the force of it, his hand pressed up between them, and he pulls it free to cup the side of Louis' neck, fingers tickled by the hair there. Louis slips his tongue past the seam of Liam's lips and Liam swallows the taste of lemonade he leaves in his mouth, sucks on Louis' tongue with a moan, lets him roll them both over. They kiss like it's a reunion, and at last Liam knows he's not the only one who's failed to forget what happened, even though he hasn't watched the video back since the night it did.

Louis settles between Liam's spread legs and Liam pushes up with his hips out of some kind of habit, confused between Louis-pinning-him-whilst-they-wrestle and snogging-with-someone-he-might-fuck-later, and he's embarrassed by the way he's half-hard already until Louis gives him an answering shove, rocking up with his weight on his free hand by Liam's head.

"Do you ever think," Liam breathes between kisses, threading his fingers again and again through Louis' hair, letting it slip and fall between them, shaggy and wild. "We could be, like-- well, like it was with the girls--"

Louis pauses with his lips pressed together at the corner of Liam's mouth as he talks. "What?"

"I mean the way we were," Liam rushes to say. "Together, like, me and Sophia and you and--" Louis starts trying to struggle up, and Liam's gone about this all wrong. "Do you ever think we could be like that together? Just the two of us?"

"Together like..." Louis stills again and looks down between their bodies, a slow incline of his head, then up again and past Liam, to the far wall of the lounge. "You're asking to be my girlfriend, Liam?"

Liam feels his face flush hard and fast, and he's glad for the lack of Louis' focus right now because he has no excuse for it, nothing but giddy longing to be able to lie like this with Louis without wondering if and when it will end. "I was actually thinking of asking if I could give you a blowjob, to be honest."

"Oh, god," Louis says, ducking his head to bite at the juncture of Liam's neck and shoulder, grinding down with his hips as he sinks his teeth in. Liam can feel the tremor in Louis' arm from holding himself up. _Lightweight_ , he allows himself to think; months of football training gone and Louis hasn't so much as lifted a barbell. Liam slides his hands from Louis' hair and trails them down his back over his shirt, warm, a bit damp above the curve of his arse, and then pushes down with the heels of his hands at the peak of it before digging his fingers in and squeezing, pulling _in_ and _up_. "Liam," Louis says, "god, Liam," and stretches himself out over Liam, arching so his arms are straight and his hips clear Liam's, though Liam keeps his hands tight on his arse.

"I don't know how to do this," Louis says, meeting Liam's gaze at last. His hair is disheveled from having Liam's hands in it, falling in his face. "How to just-- I don't know how _not_ to be like-- together. How not to be a boyfriend."

"That's the thing, innit," Liam says, giddy, blood rushing with it. He lifts his hips, tries to pull Louis back down to him, and when that fails, he leans up to touch their foreheads together. "Me neither, but we're good at it, yeah? We're good boyfriends, we can do that, can't we?"

"Like--" Louis breathes out, staring at Liam's mouth. "To each other."

"We can do anything to each other," Liam says. He lets go of Louis' arse at last, cups Louis' face in his hands to make the point, to drive it home that that's not all he wants. "I can be your girlfriend, if you want, Tommo," he grins. "And also give you a blowjob, maybe."

"Well, it's part of the package, Liam, if I accept your offer," Louis says grandly. He's still not looking Liam in the eyes, but some of the tension has gone out of his body, awkwardly held up above Liam. He sags a little. "And it's more of a-- a standing proposal, then."

Liam feels his face split as his smile grows. "Standing orders for blowjobs every Wednesday?" he asks breathlessly, thumbing over Louis' cheeks. Louis squawks in protest, but finally brings his gaze back to Liam, finally fully present for the conversation they're now having.

"I'd like to think more often than that," Louis says, carefully. "If we're-- if we agree." He swallows. "If we're going to be boyfriends to each other."

"Maybe we should kiss on it," Liam suggests. "I'm that kind of boyfriend. I think that's how I'd do it."

Louis nods. "Same, me too," he says, sinking down onto Liam, squirming as though he's trying to climb into him, hot and hard against Liam's hip. He kisses Liam quickly, pulls back, and then they're kissing again, mouths soft and open. Liam can feel the scrape of Louis' beard against his own, but they're careful around it, different from the desperation of earlier, and the soft curiosity they'd had so long ago. "But I also think," he pulls back again, breathless now as well, Liam's pleased to note, "that you should give me a blowjob, but like, properly. The floor of this bus, while it holds many fond memories for me, is no place for someone's first time."

"Second time," Liam corrects him. "Or, no-- well, I suppose it was _my_ first time, but it's _our_ second time--"

"Liam," Louis interrupts. "Are you really arguing instead of blowing me?"

Liam blinks. "No?" he says; then, more firmly, "no."

Louis sits up, back on his knees, and trails his hands over Liam's shoulders, up his arms, until he can fold his fingers through Liam's and they're holding hands. "Let's go back to the hotel," Louis says.

Liam goes.

***

"So how do you--" Liam puts his hands in his pockets to keep them to himself on the way up in the service lift, although it wouldn't be weird, would it, to lean in to Louis, to put a hand to the back of his neck. Nobody on their team would think that was weird. Louis'd thrown on a beanie for the trek from the bus, and his hair is curling out of the back in wisps. "How do we do this? Are we going to yours?"

"Yeah, why not?" Louis says, pushing Liam out of the lift ahead of him and after security with his hand respectfully above Liam's arse. "I'll host, and then I don't have to tidy in the morning. This one," he adds, under his breath, and they glance at each other, then opposite ways up and down the hall for stragglers and strays. Louis unlocks the door, but keeps his hand on the handle, like he's giving Liam, or himself, one more chance to object.

"Moment of truth," Liam says, because it won't be him, and then they're pushing inside past one another, letting the door close behind them as they drop their things and make their way into the wide-open suite.

Louis turns to him, beaming and pink in the cheeks. "Hi," he says, and pulls a face, laughing at himself.

Liam laughs with him, smiling until his cheeks feel tight with it. "Hello," he says. _I'm gonna give you a blowjob_ , he thinks, and his heartbeat trips up a notch. "It's not very romantic, is it, if I just sort of..." he gestures at Louis' shorts, not as obscenely tented as they had been before, when they were still on the bus.

"I think it's quite romantic," Louis says at once, going redder. Liam steps up closer to him to nudge him back a step, and Louis nudges back, twitches harder against Liam's hip. "First-rate, for a standard outing," he goes on, breathy with nerves, and Liam can't help but kiss him, tilting his head up with his palm and feeling the rasp of Louis' beard against his thumb. He's a great boyfriend, he thinks. First-rate. He can do this.

They walk their way back until they hit the bed and then Louis drops down on it and leans back on his elbows. "Do you want to get in?" he asks, starting to pull his legs up, but Liam crouches before him and holds down his knees before spreading them and kneeling fully between them.

"This first," Liam tells him, looking up at him and licking his lips because his own mouth has gone dry. He wonders if this is what it was like for Louis, looking up while Liam filmed him. He's nervous about making Louis feel good, nervous about making a pig's ear of it, nervous he won't like giving head, nervous that he _will_. He loosens Louis' drawstrings in a flash to keep his fingers from shaking, then hooks them in Louis's waistband and folds it down.

The only sound Louis makes when Liam licks at the crown of his cock is a sharp intake of breath, and then a heartfelt sigh when Liam actually closes his mouth around the tip for a first, tentative suck. It's wetter than Liam had thought it would be, sucking like this, trails of wet slipping over his fingers where he's holding the base of Louis' cock. He doesn't know the etiquette of pulling off to clean it up. He can't remember it from the blowjobs he's received, not even when Louis had sucked his dick; maybe the mess doesn't matter in the greater scheme of things, he reckons, breathing through his nose and slurping up again.

It’s familiar, wanking someone else’s cock, like hearing someone else wank off and remembering how it feels to do your own. He likes it, he thinks, beyond simple curiosity. He’s enjoying it. He can taste the salt of Louis' pre-come on the back of his tongue, can smell him on his hand, but his mouth is making more noise than Louis now, the slick sound of his fist as he twists it on the downstroke drowning out Louis' soft breaths.

He pulls off with a pop, a bit disappointed, and stares up Louis' torso. Louis has his head tilted back and his Adam's Apple works for a moment before he sways back forward to look down at Liam. "You all right?" Liam asks him, wanking him pointedly. "I need to know if I'm doing a rubbish job."

"No, you're good," Louis assures him, breath coming a bit fast. His fists are clenched in the duvet by his sides.

"I'm not getting a lot of feedback, here," Liam says, still wanking, though his spit's going a bit dry; he's satisfied at least to see Louis shudder and his eyes roll a bit. It’s-- well, it’s hot, he can see that, and his own dick stiffens further in his pants. How's he supposed to see these kinds of reactions, with his forehead in Louis' pubes?

" _God_ ," Louis groans, lifting his hands to his face. "I'm trying to be polite, you _wanker_."

"Who are you," Liam says in disbelief, "and what have you done with the Tommo I know? I've had more action from you just sat next to you reading our phones, and _I've got my mouth on your cock._ "

"Well, you haven't right now, have you," Louis points out. "I just don't want to be rude about it. I'm a very good-- jesus christ--" he hisses, as Liam sucks him down again, squeezing with his hand as he wets the way-- "boyfriend that way."

Liam pulls off again. " _Boyfriend?_ " he asks. "Is that what this is? You're trying not to scare me off?" He's not scaring off material, Liam isn't. If he were going to be scared off, it'd be from having gay sites all over the internet measuring his cock at seven inches. He's fully committed to this, and he shows it with a few good laps up the length of Louis' dick that have Louis' voice catching in his throat and delivers another droplet of pre-come to lick away from Louis' slit. "Hang on a tick," he pulls off again. "Was I rude to you when you were blowing me?"

Louis makes a strangled cry and pounds the bed with his fists. " _What_ are you playing at?"

Liam tries to remember, stroking his wet hand over Louis' prick. "I mean, apart from the bit where you gagged at first, I didn't move too much on you or anything, did I? Was I that awful to you?"

"It's incredibly rude," Louis gasps, "to gag someone. _Liam._ "

"I mean, I appreciate the effort, full marks and everything," Liam tells him. "But you can make some noise, yeah?"

"I'm _begging_ you," Louis says. His thighs are shaking.

He's so hard in Liam's hand, foreskin stretched back and wet again at the tip, and with a start Liam realises he could probably finish Louis off just like that, with a wet hand. "Oh, I'm sorry, mate, are you gonna come?" Liam asks, folding his lips over Louis' dick again and pushing down, down, letting his mouth adjust to the size of him. He knows how much better it is to come inside.

"Please, Liam," Louis croaks, "please, for the love of god, shut _up_ , shut--"

"Come on," Liam mumbles around Louis, his hand stroking gently at the base, and it comes out as a rumble, his tongue flattened down by the crown of Louis' cock as it swells just that bit further.

Louis' hips twist under Liam's torso as he comes, moaning, and Liam has to back off to let it fill his mouth and swallow without choking. It's a near thing, bitter and salt at the back of his throat making him want to cough, but if they're being polite, it's the least Liam can do.

Louis stays on his back as Liam draws up his shorts and scrambles up on the bed beside him, unfastening his flies as he goes to relieve a bit of the pressure on his own cock. He presses a quick kiss to the side of Louis' head where his beanie is slipping askew, and Louis lets out a short giggle that turns into a helpless stream of them, his shoulders shaking as he brings his hands back up to his face to hide behind. Liam can't help but join in, curling onto his side to tuck his head in over Louis' shoulder, and he slides a leg in between Louis', his hips fitting alongside Louis' so he can rub up against it.

Louis lifts his hand and elbow and tucks in his chin to peek down at Liam. "Hey," he says, bringing his arm down between them, palm skimming over Liam's dick; Liam bites his lip on a moan and bucks up into it, pinning Louis' hand to his hip. "Want me to wank you off?"

"Yeah," Liam nods, mouthing at Louis' warm skin, clean, but only now starting to taste slightly of sweat. "Yeah, just get me--"

"Here," Louis says, awkwardly reaching into Liam's pants for his cock. He turns over and changes hands so he can stroke right-handed, ducking his head to kiss Liam, and Liam kisses back, the taste of Louis' come heavy on his tongue. The thought that Louis can taste it as well makes him moan, rocking into the circle of Louis' fingers, and he rolls them back over, letting Louis wank him off over Louis' own stomach with a pace a bit too regular to get him off when he's this close.

"Faster," Liam breaks off to whisper, "faster, I'm nearly--" and he covers Louis' hand with his own to speed him up, press his fingers in for a tighter grip as he works them over the tip of his cock, panting. He watches their hands together as he closes the gap to coming; then he looks up and catches Louis watching his face, eyes wide and mouth open, and with a gasp he's spurting out, cupping his hand over the head of his cock to catch the come that escapes his foreskin.

"There we go," Louis murmurs encouragingly, drawing his hand back. 

"Was that all right?" Liam asks shakily, breathing into the side of Louis' neck. He curls his fingers around the come in his palm, tries to pull his hand out from between them.

"I think I'd ring you a second time," Louis says in a lofty voice, but Liam can still hear the edges of the smile he’s fighting. "As far as, you know, potential boyfriend material goes. You didn’t come on me, so. Thanks for that.”

“Yeah, cheers,” Liam says.

“You could’ve talked a bit dirty,” Louis goes on. “You could’ve told me how to wank you off, like, really detailed and stuff.”

“I wasn’t gonna last more than ten seconds, mate,” Liam argues. He lifts his head, and his arm, away from Louis, scans the room for the nearest source of tissues. “And-- didn’t I just say you could’ve given me a bit more direction, yourself?” He settles on wiping his hand on the duvet. Disgusting, but it _is_ Louis’ room.

“Is that the sort of boyfriends we are, then?” Louis wonders. “Wank off ourselves, don’t want to be much of a bother, come quietly? Wipe our hands off on the sheets, _Liam_?”

Liam thinks about it. He’s never really considered how he is in terms of performance, as long as everyone ended up satisfied at the end of the night, more than once if he could help it. “Well, I reckon we don't _have_ to be," Liam says. "I can talk as dirty as you like. I'll wipe my hands all over your bloody sheets if I want to."

"Get _in_ , birthday boy," Louis grins, impressed. "We can do round two in the shower, and I'll fuck your mouth."

"I still think that's pretty rude, though, actually," Liam says, frowning. He'd nearly choked just from the come, and he'd been in full control of that.

"Liam," Louis sighs, "the entire _point_ is we're being rude. We're lads. We're lads with willies who do rude things with them. I'll fuck your mouth in the shower, yeah? You can try and hold me still and we'll see who wins."

Liam shrugs where he lies. He knows he can hold Louis still if he wants to; it sounds an awful lot like Louis is caving in without seeming to cave in. "You can just be a bit noisier if you want to," he suggests. "I'd quite like to hear you. I liked hearing it when you were moaning, before."

Louis flushes a bit red. "You might have to hold me quite still for that," he says.

Liam feels his cheeks heat up as well, at the vivid thought of digging his thumbs into the sides of Louis' hips, his fingers into Louis' arse, holding Louis against the wall in the shower, knelt before him with his cock deep in his mouth. The possibility of it becoming reality is overwhelming, all the brazen fantasies they've spoken aloud taking on immense gravity here, in bed with Louis, with his softening prick still out of his pants.

"We might have to wait a while to try it," he says, a bit shyer, as he glances over at Louis. "I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet," he says, then cringes at how that probably came out sounding, like he thinks Louis is strange, or that he'd come on too strong. Both of those things are true about Louis nearly all of the time, but when it comes to this Liam feels like he wants to try everything at once, feels he understands Louis completely. "I just mean tonight," he insists. "I just mean I'm tired. I've had a bit of an interesting day."

Louis nods, his face still red. "It's late, anyway. Maybe just a quick shower, then."

They strip down quickly and it's a bit awkward considering what they've already done. Without the perfunctory speed of quick changes Liam is too aware of his own body, of his arms and his arse and the hair around his cock, parts Louis has commented on over the year, both before and after they'd kissed and Louis had gone down on him. He feels overlarge when they're naked and Louis is hunched wet under the shower spray, his hair plastered down the sides of his face, but Louis looks just as hunted as Liam feels. "I'll wash your back," Louis says, gesturing for Liam to turn around, and he does, with relief.

It isn't easy in the way the first showers Liam has had with his partners always aren't, before bodily scrutiny can turn into open appreciation, and Louis initially balks when Liam offers to shampoo his hair. It's familiar, the way Louis' long hair slips through Liam's soapy fingers, the warmth of his scalp beneath Liam's hands, the way he pushes gently back on Liam when he nudges his hardening dick against Louis' arse. Liam hooks his chin over Louis' shoulder as he lathers him up, watches Louis' cock start to plump up from the stimulation. There's no urgency to it, neither of them hard enough to do much, and they only snog a little bit under the water after they're clean.

Louis shakes his wet hair out while they're still in the tub, cackling as he splatters Liam with cold, hard droplets even though he's just as wet. Liam has never had this with anyone else, but he supposes it's just one more tick on a long list of exceptions when it comes to Louis. He sputters, protests, but stands in Louis' radius, like always.

***

If they're going to be in the hotel, Liam's going to take advantage of the gym, so he rises early the next morning for a workout, presses out all of the aches and tension from last night and welcomes in new ones. He has lube in a compartment of one of the bags he didn't have brought up with him; he considers making a quick trip to the bus for it at this hour, thinking there likely won't be as many fans around the bus if he does, but in the end he decides against it. Better to be safe than sorry.

He's showered again and in his pants, towelling off his hair as he climbs back onto the bed next to Louis, who's still asleep on his stomach. His arms are wrapped around the pillow he's sleeping on, his back bare with the sheets pushed down to his arse. Liam kisses Louis' shoulder blade lightly as he stretches out next to him, letting his towel drop to the floor. He places his hand over the spot he’d kissed, watches the way it spreads to cover the corner of Louis' back, the way his thumb wraps round to stroke at the tufts of Louis' armpit hair.

Louis stirs, turns his head, and the soft spill of his hair brushes Liam's fingers high up on his back. He opens his eyes. "Tickles," he croaks, then narrows his eyes. "What time is it? Have you got ready already? Did you work out?"

"Yeah, I've just come back," Liam tells him. "We've got some time, still. In case you wanted to, you know. Mess around or something?"

"You're all clean," Louis flaps a hand at him. "You've probably brushed your teeth and everything."

"I don't mind if you haven't," Liam tells him, sliding his hand down Louis' back until it meets the sheets at his arse, then pushes them down with it, and that gets Louis moving, rolling over to catch Liam's hand with his own. Liam really wishes he'd stopped by the bus for supplies now, but they'll have to make do.

Louis blows him with the duvet pulled up around his shoulders, better and wetter than he had even in Liam's idealised memory of the first time. They don't banter; Louis makes contented little noises at the back of his throat that Liam doesn't remember happening before, even as he babbles to Louis about how good his mouth feels, how close Liam is, how Louis' going to make Liam come. When he does, Louis swallows, then pulls off, looking up at Liam with dark eyes, and that's when someone knocks on the door.

"I'm only in my pants," Liam whispers, panicked.

"I'm naked and hard," Louis whispers back.

"Fair enough," Liam says, and they stumble out of bed, Liam for a dressing gown, Louis for the toilet. Room Service has left them with an enormous spread, and Liam's thrown for a moment wondering who could have had it sent up until he sees the card with a simple _Check your texts bro! xx_ scrawled inside.

 _Bus 1 knows how to have a good time_ Zayn has texted them, and a picture of Liam's Mikes Hard bottle with the sparkler in, then _So you thought you could leave me on the bus for your little party ha! I see how it is :) xx_

"Zayn's ordered us a fry-up!" Liam calls out, when he's rolled everything in and sat back down on the bed. Louis emerges from the toilet wearing his own pants, toothbrush in his mouth, and gives him the thumbs up, so Liam prepares their tea while he waits for Louis to be ready.

 _wat do you know bro???_ he texts Zayn.

_Enough to know you're idiots. Want anything from the bus? xx_

"Zayn sends his love," Liam yells, describing his bag to Zayn via text, and it occurs to him that if Zayn didn't know too much before, he definitely does now. Liam still doesn't know what he intends to do with anything in his bag; it would just be nice to have it there. He'd like to be prepared, for any inevitability.

He's still adding sugar to his tea when Louis returns, and Louis raises a sardonic eyebrow at him over his own cup that carries the argumentative weight of years of mornings doing precisely that. When his bag arrives, Liam rushes to the door to get it.

"Leave it," Louis says, from the bed. "We're still early, and we're already eating."

"I just needed to get some things from the bus," Liam explains, pulling his bag in behind him.

"But you have your--" Louis looks around, his gaze settling on Liam's other open suitcase, clothes folded neatly inside. "Things," he says, then sets his tea down and sits up straighter. "You mean _sex_ things? Payno, you _pervert._ " He seems to be caught between awe and mocking delight, and Liam is suddenly struck through with nerves. They haven't talked at all about this, and the thought of going through assorted items, lube or condoms or - _god_ , shopping together - for Louis to approve or reject them is daunting.

"After we're finished eating," Liam assures him. "If there's time."

"Fuck that; we'll _make_ time," Louis says, and takes a bite of hash browns.

Afterwards, Liam pushes Louis back down on the bed, fingers digging into his hips, and sucks his cock, licking his hand wet at first and then adding lube so he can stroke below Louis' balls and tease at his hole with his middle finger. Louis tries to arch up when Liam does it, but Liam's been waiting for that, spreads his free hand out flat over Louis' pelvis and _leans_ until Louis groans, harsh and ragged. He's immobile but trembling, panting loudly, when Liam finally gets the slick tip of his finger into Louis' hole, and then Louis cries out and comes, tugging up the duvet in his fists.

Liam swallows and releases him; impossibly, Louis sinks further into the bedding, boneless. "And now we have to go," Liam tells him, eyeing the clock on the bedside table.

"Fuck," Louis says.

"Good show, by the way," Liam can't help but add, can't help but take the piss. "I take back everything I said about being quiet before. There were little birds singing along on the windowsill and everything, I'm not being funny."

" _Fuck_ ," Louis says, but he accepts Liam's hand to pull him up.

***

"Well, your little birthday night _in_ didn't go unnoticed," is how Katie greets them at their meeting.

"Right," Liam says, fighting the sullen slouch to his shoulders as he settles in for yet another telling off. Professional doesn't mean slouching; or, it can, but Liam hasn't yet figured out how to get away with it as often as Louis does.

"Stayed in, girlfriends nowhere to be found," Katie counts off on her fingers. "The papers are starting to run with speculation that you're no longer together. I just thought you should be aware."

Liam shrugs, tries not to seem affected. He tries not to feel like he's being punished for the bit of fun and hope he let himself have, instead of feeling guilty all of the time. "They'd talk whether I stayed in or went out, wouldn't they?" he wonders, recalling Louis’ words from earlier.

"Oh, of course," Katie says, matter-of-factly. "Gay scandal only lasts for so many news cycles. Now it'll be 'break-up scandal' just in time for your last show, and no stories to compete with it while you’re between shows for the next week." She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. "Listen, Liam, you know I can't make you do anything from here--"

"Hey, I follow your suggestions," Liam protests.

"Have you stayed off Twitter like I asked?" is all Katie says.

Liam squares his jaw. "Yes?" he says, but Louis snorts from beside him, which is fine and good for Louis, who wouldn't even pretend to do what Katie asked.

"--if I were you," Katie continues, "For the next week when you’re not performing, I would--"

"Try and lay low," Louis suggests. "Which is what he was doing." He carefully doesn’t say _we_ ; Liam carefully doesn’t look in his direction.

"Then do more of it," Katie says, her expression soft. "Give them a slow news week. _Please._ "

"So what _are_ your plans for the break?" Liam asks Louis when they’ve rung off between meetings, stretching his legs out across the two conference room chairs between them. "Are you going home, then?"

Louis shakes his head slowly, rocking back on the rear legs of his chair. "A week's a bit short, innit, to go home and then come back straight away."

"Yeah, true." Liam had just assumed Louis _would_ go home, but they hadn't actually discussed it before. Liam hadn't even _thought_ of discussing it until now, hadn't thought of the benefits of synchronising their schedules or finding out how close they'd be to one another until this happened.

"How about you?" Louis asks, and Liam shrugs, caught unprepared.

"I suppose I thought--" if they both went home, they could find some way to meet in the middle after a few days, rejoin in London or something. Liam had always planned to go home with Sophia, and she isn't a part of his life anymore, even if his mates back home still are. "I don't know, to be honest," he admits. "I didn't really have any plans."

"I was thinking," Louis starts. "If you weren't planning on going home, I was wondering. How do you feel about Vegas?"

Liam turns to look at him. "For the week off?"

Louis nods. "Yeah!"

"I can't help but feel it's sort of the opposite of Katie's definition of laying low," says Liam, and even as he says it he realises how much sense that must make to Louis.

Louis' shaking his head, though. "No," he says, "not, like, _Vegas_ , legal prostitution, strip clubs, gambling Vegas. Like, _Vegas_. Anonymous Vegas, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, Vegas. To lay low, I mean.”

“All right,” Liam says, narrowing his eyes and not quite following.

“I mean,” Louis says, lowering his voice and leaning in until he’s propped himself up on his arms above Liam’s legs one chair over. “We could get a couple of rooms at the top of the Bellagio, and… never leave the bed, _all week_.” He reaches out quickly and tweaks Liam’s nipple, then sprawls back on his own seat with a smirk.

“We could,” Liam realises aloud, rubbing absently at his nipple with the heel of his hand over his shirt. God, they _could_. They could spend the entire week exploring and learning each other, finding new things they like to do, trying so many things for the first time. Give each other bruises and marks that will fade by the time their break is over. His face starts to feel hot.

“Or we could write,” Louis goes on in a rush, drawing Liam’s attention back before he can say anything. “We could make it a working trip and write some songs, something to bring back to Jamie and Julian and the boys. Or, or we could do both, or whatever.”

“Yeah, of course,” Liam nods. “That’s a good idea, too.”

“I just want you to come with me,” Louis says urgently, his hands sliding over his thighs, and then he reaches out and places them on Liam’s legs, crawls over them on the chair until he reaches Liam’s hands. “Liam," he says, taking one of Liam's hands in his own. "Liam, come to Vegas with me.”

A laugh bubbles up inside Liam at the sight of Louis, literally on his knees with Liam’s hand clasped in both of his, and he can’t keep it from escaping, a bit high and hysterical. “You don’t need to convince me, Tommo,” he giggles. “I’m in! I’m in. Let’s go, then!”

Louis drops Liam’s hand and rocks back to sit on his heels. “Good,” he beams. “It’ll be brilliant. I’m getting more tea,” he announces, and starts to get to his feet, grabbing his phone off the table and snapping his laptop shut.

Liam stops him on the way out, nothing sitting right in his mind about the way Louis had asked him, how he’d all but begged. “You knew I wouldn’t say no to you,” he tells Louis. “You know I’m one hundred percent in for everything, you just say the word. Why is Vegas so important?”

Louis hoists his laptop up in his arm and shrugs with the other. “It’s not _Vegas_ that’s important,” he insists. “And I don’t know what I’d do if you said no, so I’m glad you didn’t. I’d just pick somewhere else, I suppose. I don’t care where.” He leans back against the conference room door instead of opening it. “I turned my life upside down for you, Liam,” he says, softer. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

Liam freezes where he stands. He hasn’t thought about it that way, not even a little bit. He feels like he’ll never stop being surprised by the way Louis chooses to reveal himself to him, and the little ways he does without intending to. His hands are twitching with the urge to grab Louis and pull him in to kiss him, or wrestle him down to the floor, equal energy for different ends, and he reckons that’s what it means, isn’t it, to love Louis; to be caught in Louis’ orbit and never want to adventure without him.

“Then don’t,” he says.

 

 

end.

**Author's Note:**

> I could not have done this without the help of [cmdf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cmdf) and [Liralen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Liralen), for asking difficult questions and for the ideas and outright dialogue I gratefully stole; [becka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/becka) and [disarm_d](http://archiveofourown.org/users/disarm_d) for the incredible support, [lazy_daze](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_daze)! for Britpicking! and to Zaf, Falon, Ari and Mel for being so kind and cheerleading. Any mistakes are my own.


End file.
